PART FIVE
CHAPTER I
That night I didn't get on board till just before midnight and Dominiccould not conceal his relief at having me safely there. Why he shouldhave been so uneasy it was impossible to say but at the time I had a sortof impression that my inner destruction (it was nothing less) hadaffected my appearance, that my doom was as it were written on my face.I was a mere receptacle for dust and ashes, a living testimony to thevanity of all things. My very thoughts were like a ghostly rustle ofdead leaves. But we had an extremely successful trip, and for most ofthe time Dominic displayed an unwonted jocularity of a dry and bitingkind with which, he maintained, he had been infected by no other personthan myself. As, with all his force of character, he was very responsiveto the moods of those he liked I have no doubt he spoke the truth. But Iknow nothing about it. The observer, more or less alert, whom each of uscarries in his own consciousness, failed me altogether, had turned awayhis face in sheer horror, or else had fainted from the strain. And thusI had to live alone, unobserved even by myself.
But the trip had been successful. We re-entered the harbour very quietlyas usual and when our craft had been moored unostentatiously amongst theplebeian stone-carriers, Dominic, whose grim joviality had subsided inthe last twenty-four hours of our homeward run, abandoned me to myself asthough indeed I had been a doomed man. He only stuck his head for amoment into our little cuddy where I was changing my clothes and beingtold in answer to his question that I had no special orders to give wentashore without waiting for me.
Generally we used to step on the quay together and I never failed toenter for a moment Madame Leonore's cafe. But this time when I got onthe quay Dominic was nowhere to be seen. What was it?Abandonment--discretion--or had he quarrelled with his Leonore beforeleaving on the trip?
My way led me past the cafe and through the glass panes I saw that he wasalready there. On the other side of the little marble table MadameLeonore, leaning with mature grace on her elbow, was listening to himabsorbed. Then I passed on and--what would you have!--I ended by makingmy way into the street of the Consuls. I had nowhere else to go. Therewere my things in the apartment on the first floor. I couldn't bear thethought of meeting anybody I knew.
The feeble gas flame in the hall was still there, on duty, as though ithad never been turned off since I last crossed the hall at half-pasteleven in the evening to go to the harbour. The small flame had watchedme letting myself out; and now, exactly of the same size, the poor littletongue of light (there was something wrong with that burner) watched meletting myself in, as indeed it had done many times before. Generallythe impression was that of entering an untenanted house, but this timebefore I could reach the foot of the stairs Therese glided out of thepassage leading into the studio. After the usual exclamations sheassured me that everything was ready for me upstairs, had been for days,and offered to get me something to eat at once. I accepted and said Iwould be down in the studio in half an hour. I found her there by theside of the laid table ready for conversation. She began by tellingme--the dear, poor young Monsieur--in a sort of plaintive chant, thatthere were no letters for me, no letters of any kind, no letters fromanybody. Glances of absolutely terrifying tenderness mingled withflashes of cunning swept over me from head to foot while I tried to eat.
"Are you giving me Captain Blunt's wine to drink?" I asked, noting thestraw-coloured liquid in my glass.
She screwed up her mouth as if she had a twinge of toothache and assuredme that the wine belonged to the house. I would have to pay her for it.As far as personal feelings go, Blunt, who addressed her always withpolite seriousness, was not a favourite with her. The "charming, braveMonsieur" was now fighting for the King and religion against the impiousLiberals. He went away the very morning after I had left and, oh! sheremembered, he had asked her before going away whether I was still in thehouse. Wanted probably to say good-bye to me, shake my hand, the dear,polite Monsieur.
I let her run on in dread expectation of what she would say next but shestuck to the subject of Blunt for some time longer. He had written toher once about some of his things which he wanted her to send to Paris tohis mother's address; but she was going to do nothing of the kind. Sheannounced this with a pious smile; and in answer to my questions Idiscovered that it was a stratagem to make Captain Blunt return to thehouse.
"You will get yourself into trouble with the police, MademoiselleTherese, if you go on like that," I said. But she was as obstinate as amule and assured me with the utmost confidence that many people would beready to defend a poor honest girl. There was something behind thisattitude which I could not fathom. Suddenly she fetched a deep sigh.
"Our Rita, too, will end by coming to her sister."
The name for which I had been waiting deprived me of speech for themoment. The poor mad sinner had rushed off to some of her wickednessesin Paris. Did I know? No? How could she tell whether I did know ornot? Well! I had hardly left the house, so to speak, when Rita was downwith her maid behaving as if the house did really still belong to her. . .
"What time was it?" I managed to ask. And with the words my life itselfwas being forced out through my lips. But Therese, not noticing anythingstrange about me, said it was something like half-past seven in themorning. The "poor sinner" was all in black as if she were going tochurch (except for her expression, which was enough to shock any honestperson), and after ordering her with frightful menaces not to let anybodyknow she was in the house she rushed upstairs and locked herself up in mybedroom, while "that French creature" (whom she seemed to love more thanher own sister) went into my salon and hid herself behind the windowcurtain.
I had recovered sufficiently to ask in a quiet natural voice whether DonaRita and Captain Blunt had seen each other. Apparently they had not seeneach other. The polite captain had looked so stern while packing up hiskit that Therese dared not speak to him at all. And he was in a hurry,too. He had to see his dear mother off to Paris before his owndeparture. Very stern. But he shook her hand with a very nice bow.
Therese elevated her right hand for me to see. It was broad and shortwith blunt fingers, as usual. The pressure of Captain Blunt's handshakehad not altered its unlovely shape.
"What was the good of telling him that our Rita was here?" went onTherese. "I would have been ashamed of her coming here and behaving asif the house belonged to her! I had already said some prayers at hisintention at the half-past six mass, the brave gentleman. That maid ofmy sister Rita was upstairs watching him drive away with her evil eyes,but I made a sign of the cross after the fiacre, and then I went upstairsand banged at your door, my dear kind young Monsieur, and shouted to Ritathat she had no right to lock herself in any of my _locataires_' rooms.At last she opened it--and what do you think? All her hair was looseover her shoulders. I suppose it all came down when she flung her hat onyour bed. I noticed when she arrived that her hair wasn't done properly.She used your brushes to do it up again in front of your glass."
"Wait a moment," I said, and jumped up, upsetting my wine to run upstairsas fast as I could. I lighted the gas, all the three jets in the middleof the room, the jet by the bedside and two others flanking thedressing-table. I had been struck by the wild hope of finding a trace ofRita's passage, a sign or something. I pulled out all the drawersviolently, thinking that perhaps she had hidden there a scrap of paper, anote. It was perfectly mad. Of course there was no chance of that.Therese would have seen to it. I picked up one after another all thevarious objects on the dressing-table. On laying my hands on the brushesI had a profound emotion, and with misty eyes I examined themmeticulously with the new hope of finding one of Rita's tawny hairsentangled amongst the bristles by a miraculous chance. But Therese wouldhave done away with that chance, too. There was nothing to be seen,though I held them up to the light with a beating heart. It was writtenthat not even that trace of her passage on the earth should remain withme; not to help but, as it were, to soothe the memory. Then I ligh
ted acigarette and came downstairs slowly. My unhappiness became dulled, asthe grief of those who mourn for the dead gets dulled in the overwhelmingsensation that everything is over, that a part of themselves is lostbeyond recall taking with it all the savour of life.
I discovered Therese still on the very same spot of the floor, her handsfolded over each other and facing my empty chair before which the spilledwine had soaked a large portion of the table-cloth. She hadn't moved atall. She hadn't even picked up the overturned glass. But directly Iappeared she began to speak in an ingratiating voice.
"If you have missed anything of yours upstairs, my dear young Monsieur,you mustn't say it's me. You don't know what our Rita is."
"I wish to goodness," I said, "that she had taken something."
And again I became inordinately agitated as though it were my absolutefate to be everlastingly dying and reviving to the tormenting fact of herexistence. Perhaps she had taken something? Anything. Some smallobject. I thought suddenly of a Rhenish-stone match-box. Perhaps it wasthat. I didn't remember having seen it when upstairs. I wanted to makesure at once. At once. But I commanded myself to sit still.
"And she so wealthy," Therese went on. "Even you with your dear generouslittle heart can do nothing for our Rita. No man can do anything forher--except perhaps one, but she is so evilly disposed towards him thatshe wouldn't even see him, if in the goodness of his forgiving heart hewere to offer his hand to her. It's her bad conscience that frightensher. He loves her more than his life, the dear, charitable man."
"You mean some rascal in Paris that I believe persecutes Dona Rita.Listen, Mademoiselle Therese, if you know where he hangs out you hadbetter let him have word to be careful. I believe he, too, is mixed upin the Carlist intrigue. Don't you know that your sister can get himshut up any day or get him expelled by the police?"
Therese sighed deeply and put on a look of pained virtue.
"Oh, the hardness of her heart. She tried to be tender with me. She isawful. I said to her, 'Rita, have you sold your soul to the Devil?' andshe shouted like a fiend: 'For happiness! Ha, ha, ha!' She threwherself backwards on that couch in your room and laughed and laughed andlaughed as if I had been tickling her, and she drummed on the floor withthe heels of her shoes. She is possessed. Oh, my dear innocent youngMonsieur, you have never seen anything like that. That wicked girl whoserves her rushed in with a tiny glass bottle and put it to her nose; butI had a mind to run out and fetch the priest from the church where I goto early mass. Such a nice, stout, severe man. But that false, cheatingcreature (I am sure she is robbing our Rita from morning to night), shetalked to our Rita very low and quieted her down. I am sure I don't knowwhat she said. She must be leagued with the devil. And then she askedme if I would go down and make a cup of chocolate for her Madame.Madame--that's our Rita. Madame! It seems they were going off directlyto Paris and her Madame had had nothing to eat since the morning of theday before. Fancy me being ordered to make chocolate for our Rita!However, the poor thing looked so exhausted and white-faced that I went.Ah! the devil can give you an awful shake up if he likes."
Therese fetched another deep sigh and raising her eyes looked at me withgreat attention. I preserved an inscrutable expression, for I wanted tohear all she had to tell me of Rita. I watched her with the greatestanxiety composing her face into a cheerful expression.
"So Dona Rita is gone to Paris?" I asked negligently.
"Yes, my dear Monsieur. I believe she went straight to the railwaystation from here. When she first got up from the couch she could hardlystand. But before, while she was drinking the chocolate which I made forher, I tried to get her to sign a paper giving over the house to me, butshe only closed her eyes and begged me to try and be a good sister andleave her alone for half an hour. And she lying there looking as if shewouldn't live a day. But she always hated me."
I said bitterly, "You needn't have worried her like this. If she had notlived for another day you would have had this house and everything elsebesides; a bigger bit than even your wolfish throat can swallow,Mademoiselle Therese."
I then said a few more things indicative of my disgust with her rapacity,but they were quite inadequate, as I wasn't able to find words strongenough to express my real mind. But it didn't matter really because Idon't think Therese heard me at all. She seemed lost in rapt amazement.
"What do you say, my dear Monsieur? What! All for me without any sortof paper?"
She appeared distracted by my curt: "Yes." Therese believed in mytruthfulness. She believed me implicitly, except when I was telling herthe truth about herself, mincing no words, when she used to standsmilingly bashful as if I were overwhelming her with compliments. Iexpected her to continue the horrible tale but apparently she had foundsomething to think about which checked the flow. She fetched anothersigh and muttered:
"Then the law can be just, if it does not require any paper. After all,I am her sister."
"It's very difficult to believe that--at sight," I said roughly.
"Ah, but that I could prove. There are papers for that."
After this declaration she began to clear the table, preserving athoughtful silence.
I was not very surprised at the news of Dona Rita's departure for Paris.It was not necessary to ask myself why she had gone. I didn't even askmyself whether she had left the leased Villa on the Prado for ever.Later talking again with Therese, I learned that her sister had given itup for the use of the Carlist cause and that some sort of unofficialConsul, a Carlist agent of some sort, either was going to live there orhad already taken possession. This, Rita herself had told her before herdeparture on that agitated morning spent in the house--in my rooms. Aclose investigation demonstrated to me that there was nothing missingfrom them. Even the wretched match-box which I really hoped was goneturned up in a drawer after I had, delightedly, given it up. It was agreat blow. She might have taken that at least! She knew I used tocarry it about with me constantly while ashore. She might have taken it!Apparently she meant that there should be no bond left even of that kind;and yet it was a long time before I gave up visiting and revisiting allthe corners of all possible receptacles for something that she might haveleft behind on purpose. It was like the mania of those disordered mindswho spend their days hunting for a treasure. I hoped for a forgottenhairpin, for some tiny piece of ribbon. Sometimes at night I reflectedthat such hopes were altogether insensate; but I remember once getting upat two in the morning to search for a little cardboard box in thebathroom, into which, I remembered, I had not looked before. Of courseit was empty; and, anyway, Rita could not possibly have known of itsexistence. I got back to bed shivering violently, though the night waswarm, and with a distinct impression that this thing would end by makingme mad. It was no longer a question of "this sort of thing" killing me.The moral atmosphere of this torture was different. It would make memad. And at that thought great shudders ran down my prone body, because,once, I had visited a famous lunatic asylum where they had shown me apoor wretch who was mad, apparently, because he thought he had beenabominably fooled by a woman. They told me that his grievance was quiteimaginary. He was a young man with a thin fair beard, huddled up on theedge of his bed, hugging himself forlornly; and his incessant andlamentable wailing filled the long bare corridor, striking a chill intoone's heart long before one came to the door of his cell.
And there was no one from whom I could hear, to whom I could speak, withwhom I could evoke the image of Rita. Of course I could utter that wordof four letters to Therese; but Therese for some reason took it into herhead to avoid all topics connected with her sister. I felt as if I couldpull out great handfuls of her hair hidden modestly under the blackhandkerchief of which the ends were sometimes tied under her chin. But,really, I could not have given her any intelligible excuse for thatoutrage. Moreover, she was very busy from the very top to the verybottom of the house, which she persisted in running alone because shecouldn't make up her mind to part with
a few francs every month to aservant. It seemed to me that I was no longer such a favourite with heras I used to be. That, strange to say, was exasperating, too. It was asif some idea, some fruitful notion had killed in her all the softer andmore humane emotions. She went about with brooms and dusters wearing anair of sanctimonious thoughtfulness.
The man who to a certain extent took my place in Therese's favour was theold father of the dancing girls inhabiting the ground floor. In a tallhat and a well-to-do dark blue overcoat he allowed himself to bebutton-holed in the hall by Therese who would talk to him interminablywith downcast eyes. He smiled gravely down at her, and meanwhile triedto edge towards the front door. I imagine he didn't put a great value onTherese's favour. Our stay in harbour was prolonged this time and I keptindoors like an invalid. One evening I asked that old man to come in anddrink and smoke with me in the studio. He made no difficulties toaccept, brought his wooden pipe with him, and was very entertaining in apleasant voice. One couldn't tell whether he was an uncommon person orsimply a ruffian, but in any case with his white beard he looked quitevenerable. Naturally he couldn't give me much of his company as he hadto look closely after his girls and their admirers; not that the girlswere unduly frivolous, but of course being very young they had noexperience. They were friendly creatures with pleasant, merry voices andhe was very much devoted to them. He was a muscular man with a highcolour and silvery locks curling round his bald pate and over his ears,like a _barocco_ apostle. I had an idea that he had had a lurid past andhad seen some fighting in his youth. The admirers of the two girls stoodin great awe of him, from instinct no doubt, because his behaviour tothem was friendly and even somewhat obsequious, yet always with a certaintruculent glint in his eye that made them pause in everything but theirgenerosity--which was encouraged. I sometimes wondered whether those twocareless, merry hard-working creatures understood the secret moral beautyof the situation.
My real company was the dummy in the studio and I can't say it wasexactly satisfying. After taking possession of the studio I had raisedit tenderly, dusted its mangled limbs and insensible, hard-wood bosom,and then had propped it up in a corner where it seemed to take on, ofitself, a shy attitude. I knew its history. It was not an ordinarydummy. One day, talking with Dona Rita about her sister, I had told herthat I thought Therese used to knock it down on purpose with a broom, andDona Rita had laughed very much. This, she had said, was an instance ofdislike from mere instinct. That dummy had been made to measure yearsbefore. It had to wear for days and days the Imperial Byzantine robes inwhich Dona Rita sat only once or twice herself; but of course the foldsand bends of the stuff had to be preserved as in the first sketch. DonaRita described amusingly how she had to stand in the middle of her roomwhile Rose walked around her with a tape measure noting the figures downon a small piece of paper which was then sent to the maker, who presentlyreturned it with an angry letter stating that those proportions werealtogether impossible in any woman. Apparently Rose had muddled them allup; and it was a long time before the figure was finished and sent to thePavilion in a long basket to take on itself the robes and the hieraticpose of the Empress. Later, it wore with the same patience themarvellous hat of the "Girl in the Hat." But Dona Rita couldn'tunderstand how the poor thing ever found its way to Marseilles minus itsturnip head. Probably it came down with the robes and a quantity ofprecious brocades which she herself had sent down from Paris. Theknowledge of its origin, the contempt of Captain Blunt's references toit, with Therese's shocked dislike of the dummy, invested that summaryreproduction with a sort of charm, gave me a faint and miserable illusionof the original, less artificial than a photograph, less precise, too.. . . But it can't be explained. I felt positively friendly to it as if ithad been Rita's trusted personal attendant. I even went so far as todiscover that it had a sort of grace of its own. But I never went so faras to address set speeches to it where it lurked shyly in its corner, ordrag it out from there for contemplation. I left it in peace. I wasn'tmad. I was only convinced that I soon would be.
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